Flight Assembled Architecture Exhibition

From December 2nd to February 19th, Flight Assembled Architecture, the first installation to be built by flying machines, will be conceived as an architectural structure at a scale of a 600 m high “vertical village”, the installation addresses radical new ways of thinking and materializing architecture as a physical process of dynamic formation. The exhibition is put on in Orleans, France at the Frac Center by Gramazio & Kohler and Raffaello D’Andrea in collaboration with ETH Zurich. More information on the event after the break.

In 2011, Gramazio & Kohler and Raffaello D’Andrea started to develop a pioneering approach on dynamic material formation and machine behavior. Belonging to the generation of young architects aiming at using the full potential of digital design and fabrication, Gramazio & Kohler joined with Raffaello D’Andrea whose work addresses ground-breaking autonomous systems design and algorithms. Together, they started to explore the possibilities of a revolutionary assembly apparatus and reveal with their collaboration unseen spatial and structural articulations based on the innovation of Flight Assembled Architecture.

Gramazio & Kohler and Raffaello D’Andrea developed a powerful expression of cutting-edge innovation that uses a multitude of mobile agents working in parallel and acting together as scalable production means. Those are programmed to interact, lift, transport and assemble small modules in order to erect a building structure that synthesizes a rigorous architectural approach by Gramazio & Kohler and a visionary autonomous system design by Raffaello D’Andrea.

Following an initial phase lasting several days and dedicated to the assembly by flying machines of a model standing 6 m high and 3 m in diameter – made up of 1200 prefabricated polyurethane foam modules – the exhibition will feature a “megastructure” in its completed form, along with a film documenting the airborne assembly and all aspects of the exhibition.